In 2007, the chairman and founder of Quicken Loans Inc. wanted to know what other companies would have the guts to join his then Livonia-based company, if it moved to Detroit.

Now, the 50-year-old businessman isn’t exactly quoting “Jerry Maguire” to get other companies to join him and his 3,700 or so employees downtown.

“By the end of 2012, our family of companies will have about 5,400 full-time people right here in Campus Martius -- and that’s a city,” Gilbert said Wednesday at the Idea: Detroit conference, hosted by Advertising Age and Crain's Detroit Business. “I think it’s one of the best moves we’ve ever made.”

Gilbert intends to move about 1,800 more employees from his 40 umbrella companies this year to the First National Bank Building and Dime Building, both which he owns, by year's end.

Since January 2011, Gilbert -- through his real estate purchasing arm Rock Ventures Group -- has purchased nine buildings, three parking structures and one parking lot as he continues to lure high-tech startups, retail outlets and people to downtown Detroit.

“We realized when we moved down here a little over a year ago ... we realized we needed to control the hardware, or the buildings -- the real estate,” Gilbert said. “The good news was there was a skyscraper sale going on in Detroit at the time.”

Besides the First National and Dime buildings, Gilbert owns the M@dison Building, Chase Tower, Wright-Kay Building, Layne Bryant Building, Arts League of Michigan Building and the historic Federal Reserve Building, which he purchased earlier this year.

Gilbert said having a “family of companies” downtown makes for better business and allows them to support one another.

“Anytime anybody signs up here (the Woodward corridor) in Detroit … we want to promote them,” said Gilbert, adding a plug for the new bakery Just Baked, which is expected to open in the Dime Building next week. “We eat our own dog food as we like to say or our own cupcakes in this case.”

Gilbert was joined on stage Wednesday by Dan Mullen, acquisition manager at Quicken Loans, and Bruce Shwartz, of Gilbert's Bedrock Management leasing arm.

Shwartz said being in downtown Detroit also has helped Quicken Loans’ internship program, according to officials. The company has received 3,800 applications for roughly 500 summer intern spots.

“This is the way that we’re going to keep the young folks here,” he said. “By giving them the opportunity, showing them, letting them feel and touch (downtown Detroit).”

Mullen added that employees seem more creative now that they are looking at the historic buildings of Detroit instead of the roof of Costco, which they were when the company was based in Livonia.

“We’re having trouble finding a single person, a single person, out of the 3,700 or so that are here now -- and there’s more coming -- that have said 'I can’t don’t it, I don’t like it, I’m quitting the company,'” Gilbert said.

The focus of his building purchases has remained along the Woodward corridor from Campus Martius Park to I-75.

Besides the First National and Dime buildings, Gilbert owns the M@dison Building, Chase Tower, the Wright-Kay Building, the Layne Bryant Building, the Arts League of Michigan Building and the historic Federal Reserve Building, which he purchased earlier this year.

Without releasing any exact details, Gilbert said more good news from other companies, as well as his own, should be coming to Detroit later this year.

"They’re going to be talking about this corridor all over the United States," Gilbert said before displaying a fake Time Magazine cover from March 2020 (above). "This is probably like the magazine we’re going to see."

Other keynote speakers at Idea Detroit included Erik Qualman, author of “Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business”; Rob Weisberg, Zipcar chief marketing officer; and Mike Jbara, president and CEO of Warner Elektra Atlantic Corp.